Teddy
by Feral Phoenix
Summary: Because everyone knows that while Gulcasa likes to act all tough, he's really just a big softie who adores his little sister. Fluff, maybe mild spoilers for chapter 3.


Teddy

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yggdra Union, Gulcasa, or Emilia-chan, blah blah we already know all that. Don't sue me. I'll sic my muses and my army on you.

It was the end of a very long and annoying day, and the only thing that was keeping Gulcasa awake and out of bed was a dauntingly tall stack of reports he was required to look over, sign, and stamp with the Imperial Seal before the next morning. Some were requisitions for backup or supplies; others were new decrees; still others were notifications to the public about how the war was faring.

Which, all in all, was _not _as well as the emperor and his retinue had expected. That annoying little princess and her ragtag Royal Army were getting to be an enormous pain in the tail. The Empire was losing good soldiers by the day, morale was at an all-time low, and the stacks of forms on Gulcasa's desk each night just kept getting higher and higher.

Gulcasa glared at the papers balefully, then moaned and headslumped. And he'd thought that his duties had been bad when he'd just _ascended _the Imperial rule… if he'd known it would've gotten like this, he would have just taken Emilia and run off before he'd gotten stuck with authority.

Because the truth had finally hit home: Authority wasn't as fun as it seemed from the outside. It _SUCKED, _in all capitals.

The Emperor of Carnage glanced sideways at the full-length mirror propped on the far wall and made a face. His usually firm and intimidating golden gaze was pathetically bleary, and made even worse by the fact that all these late nights were giving him raccoon eyes. He'd pulled his disheveled crimson hair into a braid so that it wouldn't get tangled once he eventually went to bed; tufts and strands were already starting to fly from confinement. And, as he'd suspected, the black tank shirt and pants he always wore beneath his armor—which had fitted snugly against his muscular body only last month—looked loose. He was losing weight. How mortifying was that?

"I… hate… my… life," Gulcasa sulked into the surface of his desk. He never admitted it in public, but it was getting to be a regular thing while he was alone. Emperors couldn't look self-pitying in front of their people or their armies, who would absolutely lose heart if they saw him like this. But still…

There was _one _person who he thought might be able to watch him throw his limited version of a conniption fit without completely freaking out…

"Niisama?"

As if cued by the very thought, there was Emilia at the door.

Gulcasa straightened up with a groan, realizing in annoyance that his back was starting to hurt. He wanted a more comfortable chair if he was going to have to sit around finishing stupid reports until the freaking crack of dawn, dammit. "What is it?"

"Niisama…" Emilia was giving him a piteously teary look. "I…"

Gulcasa sighed and motioned for her to come in and close the door. "You can tell me."

"I… can't find my teddy," the young girl confessed, looking somewhere between heartbroken and embarrassed. Despite her age, Emilia seemed to consider herself too old for stuffed animals (probably due to her position as the Emperor's little sister and one of his most trusted generals), but she'd never been able to give up her favorite—an old and battered teddy bear that she'd had since she was a baby. It was hard for her even to get to sleep without it.

Gulcasa turned to face her. "…Do you have any idea where you might've lost her?"

Emilia shook her head no. "I didn't notice she was missing 'til we got back from the fight at the castle…"

"Did you bring her with you to Paltina the other day?" Gulcasa asked with a frown.

"I don't know… maybe…" Emilia fidgeted, looking distressed. "What if somebody…?"

Gulcasa thought privately that even the Royal Army wouldn't sink so low as to steal a kid's stuffed animal, then that if they _had, _he would personally beat the crap out of every one of them for messing with his sister like that. "…well, we can't do anything about it right now. But tomorrow, the two of us can go looking, okay?"

"…Okay." Emilia gave him a wavering smile.

"And…" Gulcasa sighed, averted his eyes from his sister's face, and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, just this once… you can stay in here tonight if you want."

Emilia squealed and hugged him. "You are the best big brother in the _entire world."_

"Yeah, yeah." Thoroughly embarrassed now, Gulcasa patted her hair. "…But not a word to anybody else, understand?"

---

The next morning, the soldier who had come to nag his emperor awake peeked into Gulcasa's room and noted Emilia still curled in a little ball in the middle of the giant canopy bed, grinned, and elbowed Gulcasa in the ribs. "Looks like somebody's cruising for a Big Brother of the Year award."

Promptly going as red as his hair, Gulcasa gave the soldier the evil eye. "…just shut up…"

(owari :D)


End file.
